Random Quote
Education's purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one.
---- Malcom Forbes
We don't know a millionth of one percent about anything.
---- Thomas A. Edison
Man invented language to satisfy his deep need to complain.
---- Lily Tomlin
Tact is the knack of making a point without making an enemy.
---- Isaac Newton
Good teaching is one-fourth preparation and three-fourths theater.
---- Gail Godwin
Just because your voice reaches halfway around the world doesn't mean you are wiser than when it reached only to the end of the bar.
---- Edward R. Murrow
Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe.
---- H. G. Wells
Sleep is a symptom of caffeine deprivation.
---- Author Unknown
A magician pulls rabbits out of hats. An experimental psychologist pulls habits out of rats.
---- anonymous
Any man whose errors take ten years to correct is quite a man.
---- J. Robert Oppenheimer
Man invented language to satisfy his deep need to complain.
---- Lily Tomlin
The important thing is not to stop questioning.
---- Albert Einstein
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
---- Sheik Abd-al-Kadir
The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink.
---- George Orwell
I do not fear computers. I fear the lack of them.
---- Isaac Asimov
I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask them where they're going and hook up with them later.
---- Mitch Hedberg
Isn't it interesting that the same people who laugh at science fiction listen to weather forecasts and economists?"
---- Kelvin Throop III
As an adolescent I aspired to lasting fame, I craved factual certainty, and I thirsted for a meaningful vision of human life - so I became a scientist. This is like becoming an archbishop so you can meet girls.
---- M. Cartmill
Books to the ceiling,
Books to the sky,
My pile of books is a mile high.
How I love them! How I need them!
I'll have a long beard by the time I read them.
---- Arnold Lobel
I'll be more enthusiastic about encouraging thinking outside the box when there's evidence of any thinking going on inside it.
---- Terry Pratchett
It is a paradoxical but profoundly true and important principle of life that the most likely way to reach a goal is to be aiming not at that goal itself but at some more ambitious goal beyond it.
---- Arnold Toynbee
If the English language made any sense, a catastrophe would be an apostrophe with fur.
---- Doug Larson
As soon as I buy the moose head, I have to go pick up some KY jelly.
---- Mary Roninette Kowal
Drink coffee! Do stupid things faster!
---- unknown
The least of learning is done in the classrooms
---- Thomas Merton
Independant Study
So the semester has been running for 2 weeks and I’ve theoretically supposed to have been teaching a class of near native students. However only one student had shown up for class until this Friday making it difficult to plan lessons or even figure out what to do with the class in general. Well now there are eight students enrolled and the class is on.
What am I going to do with a class of students who really don’t need classroom instruction and will recieve very little benefit from attending class? Independant study. Independant study does not involve me just telling the students to go study/use English with zero guidance or support from myself.
Students in this class will be expected to read two novels over the semester. I have prepared a list of ten, of varying genres, that they can choose from. The average length of the novels is 400 pages and most of them are pulp pop fiction. I have read every book on the list in order for me to be able to discuss with the students the content and actually determine that they have read the books they chose. When I first found out about this course I started reading these novels, a book a day, and this is the only holdover from my original plan for this course. I have even read books by John Grisham, whom I despise but because he is popular I figure students will enjoy his books and the reading is for them not me.
The last activity that we will do is watch one episode of smallville per three weeks. I’ve found the scripts online (better one here) and will be preparing activities using the scripts. I have season one on DVD and will be buying the remaining seasons soon. At this point my plan for what to do with Smallville is vague and I am looking for suggestions. I’m not interested in merely watching the episode and then talking about it. I’ll probably give students portions of the scripts and do gap fills, also highlight cultural points but this still needs some development.





Nathan B. wrote 10 words on Sunday Mar 12, 2006 at 11:02 AM
Assa! Is the semi-retirement over? Interesting class you’ve got there.
AutonoBlogger wrote 45 words on Sunday Mar 12, 2006 at 04:04 PM
Sounds interesting. I wonder if you might get any ideas from the class I just blogged about over here, tho it’s not independent study.
What will you use the edublogs blog you’ve set up for?
Never heard of smallville. Is that like Pleasantville… but smaller?!?
Sean. wrote 151 words on Monday Mar 13, 2006 at 10:34 AM
Nathan,
Over, but still reduced posting frequency. I’m focusing my non-family time on improving my Korean skills. Looking forward to meeting you on Tuesday.
Autonoblogger,
I liked the post you linked to and will think carefully about it and probably end up using some of the ideas mentioned there. The edublogs will be for reflective posting as well as having the students write on topics they choose. Some guidance - re: write about what you’ve read this week or how you’ve used English as an example. And they will also be encouraged to blog on topics of thier own interest just like any other blogger.
Smallville is just about the best superhero tv show ever made. Season one is a little weak but from about two thirds of the way through season one until now it just gets better and better and better. If you can, you really should watch it.
Sean. wrote 68 words on Saturday Apr 8, 2006 at 06:16 AM
Just found out that the PDFs in the script link above are corrupt. A better place for smallville scripts is here. As I was looking around I found a site with screen captures for entire episodes. The episode I’m working on now, Metamorphosis, has 227 screen shots. You can find the list of seasons and episodes here, which for me will be very useful to make my handouts.